Alex Palou secured a third visit to the World Series Formula V8 3.5 championship podium in six races with a second place finish in race two at the Circuit of the Americas, but the Spaniard admitted it was disappointing to miss out on the win.
Despite finishing fourth on the road in race one, a penalty from the stewards demoted Palou to fifth place, after he was deemed to have gained an advantage by running off track whilst making an overtake on Matevos Isaakyan, but it was race two where the Teo Martin Motorsport driver had his best chance of the victory.
Starting from pole position, Palou kept the lead at the start but found himself unable to shake off the challenge of Egor Orudzhev, and was ultimately leapfrogged during the mandatory pit stop window by the Russian, denying the twenty-year-old the win.
“It was a weekend with ups and downs,” admitted Palou. “We had problems with balance of the car on Friday but we find something for Saturday to adapt the car to my driving style and it worked because we took the Pole”.
“Saturday’s race was chaos. I had a bad start and a bad restart after Safety Car period so fifth place was a good result at the end”.
“We changed some things for Saturday and the target was to have a good start and create a gap with rivals. The pace was good but our pit stop was pretty early I think so I returned in traffic and that was the reason to lost the first place.
“It’s a shame because even with Orudzhev’s good pace I think that he couldn’t pass me. I’m happy for the team, we showed we are fast and now we have to keep working.”
